The Helen Chronicles Ch. 04

The Cousin/Best Friend

I know it is the clich‚ of all cliches, but it became a clich‚ because it happens so often. I came home from work early one night and found out the truth about the woman I had married. I normally didn't get home from work until one in the morning, but on that particular night I had cut my arm pretty bad while trying to solve a problem with one of the stamping machines. I had gone to the clinic and they put four stitches in my arm, gave me some pain pills and told me to go home.

It was ten after eight when I got to the house and pulled into the drive. I saw my cousin Herb's car parked out front on the street, but I didn't think anything of it. Besides being my cousin Herb was also my best friend and had been since we were ten. Herb was always at the house. He and Helen liked each other and got along well and I knew that on a lot of nights when he didn't have a date or was at loose ends he would drop by the house and keep Helen and the girls company.

He played games with the girls and after they were packed off to bed he and Helen would play cribbage or gin until I came home. Thinking of the girls made me smile. I usually didn't get to put them to bed except on weekends and sitting with them and reading their favorite stories to them until they fell asleep was to me one of life's little pleasures.

I walked into the house and found all three girls sitting in front of the TV set. Mary was the first one to see me and she jumped up off the couch and ran to me. "Daddy, daddy, you're home." Normally I would have picked her up and swung her around, but with four stitches in the arm I didn't think that would be a good thing so I set her down and gave her a hug with my good arm. By then the other two had noticed me and came running over. After a minute of hugs and kisses I asked:

"Where's your mom and Uncle Herb?"

"In the back playing."

I took that to mean they were in the kitchen playing cards. I let the girls go back to the TV and I headed for the back of the house where the kitchen was. When I got there I found it was empty and that left me a little confused. The house was a single story and didn't have a basement or a garage and I'd walked through the dining room on my way to the kitchen so all that was left were the three bedrooms. Why in the hell would Helen and Herb be there? I went back into the dining room and turned left to go down the hall that led to the bedrooms and I noticed that the doors to the girl's bedrooms were open and the door to my bedroom was closed.

It still hadn't occurred to me to think bad thoughts, why would it? My loving wife and my best friend Herb? Why would I think bad thoughts about them? I checked both of the girl's bedrooms and no one was so I went to my bedroom. My hand was on the doorknob when I heard the faint, "Oh god yes, fuck me." I leaned forward and put my ear against the door and heard, "Harder damn it, fuck me harder."

I might have been a loving and trusting husband up to that point, but I wasn't a stupid one and I wasn't going to go into denial and try to tell myself that it was something other than what it seemed to be and that there was a perfectly logical explanation for what I'd just heard. My heart suddenly went cold as an iceberg and I stepped back from the door. I was going to kick the damn thing in and then I was going to go in there and do some hurting. My rage was overcome by a small voice in the back of my head that was saying:

"Your girls, don't upset the girls" and that cut through the rage like a sharp knife and I turned and went back to the living room. I told the girls it was bedtime and Marlene (age 3) and Nancy (4) got off the couch and I walked them to their room. Mary, being the oldest at five, a fact that she never let the other two forget, had her own bedroom and also had the privilege of staying up until the other two were put to bed.

I tucked the two girls in and then read to them until they started nodding off and then I went and got Mary. As I tucked her in I asked:

"Do mom and Herb play a lot?"

"All the time. Whenever he is here."

"Is he here a lot?"

"Almost every night."

I read to her until she fell asleep and then I went back to my bedroom and put my ear to the door. They were still at it. "Yes baby, oh yes, hard, just like that, hard."

I went out to the kitchen, got myself a beer and sat down to nurse it. I wanted to give the girls plenty of time to fall asleep before I went after Herb and Helen. I finished the beer and got up to get another, but before I got to the fridge I was grabbed by what I can only call morbid curiosity. I moved down the hall and put my ear against the door again.

"Jesus Helen, you have a fantastic mouth on you. That's it baby, suck it, get it hard."

For some strange reason that even now, thirty years later, I don't understand that pissed me off more than the fact they were fucking. As I listened to what was going on in what used to be my bedroom I wondered what I had done wrong to cause this to happen. At that point in time I knew nothing of what else had been going on over the past seven years and I thought the thing with Herb was the first time. I wracked my brain trying to think of what I could possibly have done to cause her to do what she was doing and I wondered what I could do - what it would take - to make things right between us.

I stood there in the hallway outside my bedroom door and was actually working on taking the blame before a voice in the back of my head snarled, "Dipshit!" at me and brought me back to reality. The reality was that Helen was fucking another man and it didn't matter if she was doing it because I did something to piss her off. It was still wrong! And that she was doing it with our children just down the hall was unforgivable.

I went to the coat closet just inside the front door and got the Kodak camera off the shelf, made sure it had film in it and then I went back to the bedroom and kicked in the door. I stepped into the room and started clicking the shutter button. When the kicked open door slammed into the wall Helen looked over, saw me, and then she screamed.

Herb was concentrating on getting his nut and by the time Helen's scream registered I was at the bed and he turned his face to me just in time for my fist to smash into his nose. Blood spurted everywhere as I dropped the camera and used both hands to pull him off Helen and off the bed. I hit him half a dozen times, driving him backwards and then he stumbled and fell against the bedroom window, which shattered, and he fell backwards through it and landed on the ground outside.

I walked to the window and looked out at him lying naked on the ground. He was cut and bleeding from the broken glass and the blood still coming out his smashed nose. I looked down and snarled at him:

"Get up and start running you bastard because I'm coming after you and I'm going to kill you."

He got up and ran for his car and I saw him stop and fumble under the rear bumper where he apparently had a spare key in a magnetic box. He got in the car and roared off and I turned back to Helen. She had gotten over the shock and she was holding the sheet to cover her and she was looking at me defiantly and waiting to see what I was going to do.

But I didn't have any idea what to do. Hell, I loved her and what I had just found had torn my guts out. I wanted to know why she had done this to us. I was already going into denial, trying to bury it, trying to find a way to get by it, get us back on the rails, put us back together as a happy family. But I had to know why.

"Why did you do it?" I asked. "How could you do it with my children wide awake and in the next room?"

She got a smirk on her face and practically spit at me:

"Just what makes you think that they are yours."

It took her all of three seconds to say that, three seconds in which everything changed. Those nine words tripped a switch in my head.

"You bitch!" I yelled at her. "You fucking whore!" I grabbed her arm and jerked her off the bed, drug her through the house to the front door and threw her naked out onto the front lawn.

After that things went to hell in a hurry. Helen was screaming and beating on the door demanding that I let her back in. The neighbors called the cops. The cops showed up and told me to let her in the house and I refused and the next thing I know I'm in a jail cell. By the time I got out Helen had taken the girls and split. It took me three months to find them and when I did she had a restraining order against me.

During those three months Herb filed a complaint against me for assault and battery and sued me for his medical bills. I beat the assault and battery charge because of a sympathetic jury, but I was still out the money I had to spend to defend myself. A month later I ran into him again and I put him in the hospital and warned him to stay out of my life.

"Keep fucking with me and I'll kill you next time."

He must have believed me because he wouldn't tell the cops who had put him in the hospital even though I'm sure they knew.

I sued Helen for divorce on grounds of adultery and she counter sued claiming mental and physical cruelty. It was a bitter divorce and even though I had pictures of her with Herb and my own girls told the court that Herb was there every night and he and mommy went into the back room and played while they watched TV Helen made out like a bandit. In Michigan at that time, and still for all I know, the courts and the Friend of he Court division are predisposed toward the woman no matter what. She got custody of the girls, even thought she plainly unfit to raise them. She got child support and separate maintenance and she had wanted the house, but the courts told us that we had to sell it and split the proceeds. Big deal! Out of my half I had to pay both lawyers and court costs. I would have been better off if I had killed her and thrown myself on the mercy of a jury and knowing what I know now if I could go back in time and relive that night I would have put her in her grave.

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It has been over thirty years now and the hate is still there and as strong as ever. The girls have spent years trying to get me to at least talk with her and heal the riff enough that the two of us can attend family events and be civil to one another, but even though Helen is willing I wont do it - ever! The only thing I have promised them is that if I outlive Helen I will take the time and go to the expense of getting to where she is buried so I can piss on her grave.

Did I ever test the girls to see if they were mine? No! I had been there when they were delivered, I had changed their diapers, fed and burped them, tucked them in bed and read them stories and done the thousand other things that parents do for their children. They were MINE and that was that.

To be continued...